In the Tridentinum there is a prayer from Holy Saturday after the 10th prophecy: Deus, qui diversitatem gentium in confessione tui nominis adunasti: da nobis, et velle, et posse quae praecipis; ut populo ad aeternitatem vocato, una sit fides mentium, et pietas actionum. In the Gregorian Sacramentary in the Hadrianum manuscript this results on the Thursday in the Octave of Easter, when the Station is at XII Apostoli.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL TRANSLATIONO God, who made all those reborn in Christ
to be a chosen race and a royal priesthood,
grant us both to desire and to be able to do what you command,
so that within the people called unto eternity
there may be one faith of hearts and one compassionate duty of actions.

The really hard phrase in this is pietas actionum. We have on many occasions in the daily Lent series talked about pietas, and how hard it is to get into English, since “piety” just doesn’t sound right to our modern ears.

In a nutshell, when we talk about pietas as applied to us humans, we generally are referring to our duty, what we owe. When pietas is used to describe God, we are usually speaking of His mercy towards us. But, here we seems to have a confluence, whereby our duty is that of mercy to our neighbor as God is dutifully merciful to us His children.

If you are steeped in medieval things, or at least archaic usage of English, and know something of heraldry, you might remember the symbol of the pelican “in her piety”. There is a symbol of Christ and His Church as a pelican who, in time of famine and drought, pierces her own breast with her bill to feed her chicks from her own blood.

This sort of pietas harks to the sense of “duty” and mercy. This is what she must do for her young out of mercy.

So, in the phrase una sit fides cordium et pietas actionum we have an expression of Christian wholeness.

Just interior faith alone does not suffice for the Christian life, nor do mere outward actions of charity and mercy.

Pope Benedict spoke to this in his first encyclical letter Deus caritas est. All good outward actions are good not just because they are performed, but because they are performed from love, a deep sacrificial love which is charity and which imitates the Lord on the Cross.

But wait, there’s more!

Double checking led to the discovery that there was a change of Collect in the 2002MR. Here is the Collect used in the Novus Ordo this day until the 2002 editio tertia.

The prayer in the edito typica altera of 1975 was not in a previous edition of the Missale Romanum. It had precedent, however, in the Gelasian Sacramentary.

LAME-DUCK ICEL:God our Father,
you always work to save us,
and now we rejoice in the great love
you give to your chosen people.

No, folks. That’s really it. Let’s keep moving along with a chuckle.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL:O God, who have made all those reborn in Christ
a chosen race and a royal priesthood,
grant us, we pray, the grace to will and to do what you command,
that the people called to eternal life
may be one in the faith of their hearts
and the homage of their deeds.

See what the new, corrected version does with that pietasactionum? “Homage of their deeds”.

You decide.

As of tomorrow, we enter into the Passion with Palm Sunday. Sweet Hosannas will ring, before we, as a Church, plunge into darkness.

Very interesting! When I began the post I had a little fright; I said, “That’s not the prayer I said from my 2002 Liturgia Horarum this morning–oh noes…I said the wrong office!” But then I got to the end about the change. Whew!

I am a little confused – I do believe the new translation here is beautiful but is it really ‘O God who HAVE made?’ It does sound a little strange seemingly putting God in the plural. Is it because understood is ‘ O God, you who have made?’

The problem is that commonly people no longer distinguish between “made” and “have made”. Folks will just say “Oh God, who made …” instead of “Oh God, who have made …” And come to think of it, the Latin does not say “have made” but “made”. “Have made” would be “feceras”. I think. (?)

A little off topic, but the picture of the pelican was the inspiration for the flag of Louisiana. But keep that a secret so the aclu won’t sue them.

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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z

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"We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been going on for fifty years. It is being addressed, but it needs much more radical attention... What has also contributed greatly to the situation is an exaltation of the virtue of tolerance which is falsely seen as the virtue which governs all other virtues. In other words, we should tolerate other people in their immoral actions to the extent that we seem also to accept the moral wrong. Tolerance is a virtue, but it is certainly not the principal virtue; the principal virtue is charity... Charity means speaking the truth. I have encountered it (not speaking the truth) many times myself as a priest and bishop. It is something we simply need to address. There is far too much silence — people do not want to talk about it because the topic is not 'politically correct.' But we cannot be silent any longer."

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"Where priest and people together face the same way, what we have is a cosmic orientation and also in interpretation of the Eucharist in terms of resurrection and trinitarian theology. Hence it is also an interpretation in terms of parousia, a theology of hope, in which every Mass is an approach to the return of Christ."

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One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting.
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"Latin is a precise, essential language. It will be abandoned, not because it is unsuitable for the new requirements of progress, but because the new men will not be suitable for it. When the age of demagogues and charlatans begins, a language like Latin will no longer be useful, and any oaf will be able to give a speech in public and talk in such a way that he will not be kicked off the stage. The secret to this will consist in the fact that, by making use of words that are general, elusive, and sound good, he will be able to speak for an hour without saying anything. With Latin, this is impossible."

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Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
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"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

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